


The Ghost of You

by Pixeled



Category: Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, Lucrecia had a crush on Grimoire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 17:16:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20177905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixeled/pseuds/Pixeled
Summary: He touched her on the small of her back and she felt it hum through her, electric.





	The Ghost of You

She put her soft delicate hand in his gloved one, looked up at him, smiled shyly. They’d shared the lab for months. She’d often stand so close to him that she could smell his aftershave, the black coffee on his breath, but they’d never touched, been _this _close. He touched her on the small of her back and she felt it hum through her, electric. Of course she had a crush on him. He was older, impossibly smart, and always seemed to respect her. What she felt, what she thought. And there was something about him, too. Something mysterious, closed off. She knew he had a son around her age, a late wife. That didn’t stop her tentative feelings. She didn’t ask about him. Didn’t ask about his personal life. It seemed wrong to, and he was guarded around her. She assumed he was guarded with most people.

The first time she had made him laugh, Lucrecia had felt her heart almost stop.His eyes were a crimson so startling and so bright, intensely sad, and yet when he laughed they lit up like the planets and stars at night. Maybe it was puppy love. She had respected his work for so long, his and Professor Gast’s. This was like a waking dream. She often wanted to pinch herself to see if what she was experiencing was true.

She didn’t want to love him, didn’t want feelings to get in the way of what she worked so hard to achieve, so she kept silent. Besides, he was a decade older than her. Perhaps more. What would he want with a girl who barely knew what it meant to love? To feel?

Still, when he pulled her so ever slightly against him and they began to dance across the floor of the open ballroom in the ShinRa building with an easy grace, she couldn’t help falling devastatingly in love all over again. His cloak curled around her dress. She had chosen to wear a white gown. It matched her pearls. Her hair was down for once and she let it frame her face, flow everywhere, its rich golden brown swaying so gently with their motions. Her eyes were on his. She couldn’t help staring into their depths, so crimson they startled her. His eyes were on hers, light brown and warm with flecks of green.

“Where did you learn to dance?” she asked softly to break the tension.

“Oh,” Grimoire said, shrugging as he dipped her. She gasped and smiled. “My wife loved to dance.” He said it so nonchalantly, but she caught the brief look of sadness in his eyes.

“How did she . . .” Lucrecia started, but then stopped, realizing it was not her place. But it was too late. He’d heard her start to ask.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “It’s been a while now. She had cancer.”

Lucrecia was silent for a moment before she spoke.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t be,” Grimoire told her. “I’m married to science now. My first love. Where did _you _learn to dance?”

“That’s classified information,” Lucrecia said slyly. In truth, her father taught her. He was gone now. He’d been a coal miner. She remembered his wet cough. With Gast’s research, power would be forever changed. It excited her. She wished her father could still be around to see it. Her mother . . . well, she was gone too, in a sense. Lucrecia had been on her own for a while.

“Oh come now,” Grimoire told her, snapping her back to the present. “I told you something. You tell me something.”

“Is that how it works?” Lucrecia smiled. “My dad used to dance with me. He would spin me for hours.” Grimoire spun her just to see her twirl, to see her dress spin out around her.

When the song was over Grimoire let her go and Lucrecia smiled and curtsied. She still felt the warmth of his gloved hand in the small of her back.

Oh yes, she loved him.

When he lay dying, just a few years later, she held him to her chest and let herself touch him.

“Tell my son I’m sorry,” he whispered.

And when she saw those same crimson eyes, that same jet black hair, how could she not love Vincent too?


End file.
